Kuma have been around in the computer world for a long time and book publishing is a well established sideline. They are not a true publisher and the presentation of the book shows this. However, presentation is not everything, content is more important and here The Amstrad CPC464 Explored scores heavily.

Unlike the majority of books, this rushes through the basics of using the computer and concentrates on sound, graphics and machine code with a section on how to write a home accounting program to round off.

The first part of the book, getting acquainted, is ideal for a user who knows BASIC but not the CPC464. I wish I had seen this book when I first bought my machine. The listings are clear with the shorter ones printed in the same, daisywheel, typeface as the rest of the book and the longer ones listed on a good dot-matrix printer. It is a shame that the printers used, took CHR$(35) to mean £ instead of # since this may confuse the novice. The section on sound is the best I have seen and this alone is worth buying the book for. It is not the role of this book to teach music but it does go a fair way and includes a section on harmony. Few commercial programs make use of the computer's sound to full effect -this book shows what can be done. It will not turn you into the next Jean-Michel-Jarre but it will take the computer beyond the stage of a musical box.

The third section is a cross between how to use graphics and how to write games. It does the second job better than the first. There are two quite sweet games included and whilst the chapters do not go into the use of graphics in depth they do give a decent grounding. The final topic handled by the book is machine code.

Kuma sell the Zen assembler for the CPC464 and this is the one used by the book. The documentation with Zen is quite poor - but despite this, it is a good assembler and with the help of The Amstrad CPC464 Explored, it is easy to use.

The last chapter is on how to write a home accounting program. This is interesting to read but I'm not sure how useful I would find the end result. At £7.95 The Amstrad CPC464 Explored is not cheap, but does provide good value for money.